Hyrox Training Plan: Combining Strength and Endurance

HYROX is not a strength competition with a bit of running in between.

And it is not an 8 km run with eight short interruptions.

The actual demand comes from the combination: you run a kilometre repeatedly, go straight into a station with an elevated heart rate, and then have to run again.

Which is exactly why a training plan of “2× strength + 3× jogging” only gets you so far.

You need three things:

1. enough running performance,
2. enough strength and local load tolerance for the stations,
3. the ability to connect the two under pre-fatigue.

The current HYROX format

The singles format consists of eight 1 km runs, each followed by a station.

The order is fixed:

1. SkiErg – 1,000 m
2. Sled push – 50 m
3. Sled pull – 50 m
4. Burpee broad jumps – 80 m
5. Rowing – 1,000 m
6. Farmers carry – 200 m
7. Sandbag lunges – 100 m
8. Wall balls – 100 reps

The official weights for the 2025/26 season are:

Station	Open men	Open women	Pro men	Pro women
SkiErg	1,000 m	1,000 m	1,000 m	1,000 m
Sled push	152 kg	102 kg	202 kg	152 kg
Sled pull	103 kg	78 kg	153 kg	103 kg
Burpee broad jumps	80 m	80 m	80 m	80 m
Rowing	1,000 m	1,000 m	1,000 m	1,000 m
Farmers carry	2×24 kg	2×16 kg	2×32 kg	2×24 kg
Sandbag lunges	20 kg	10 kg	30 kg	20 kg
Wall balls	6 kg × 100	4 kg × 100	9 kg × 100	6 kg × 100

Sled weights include the sled. Rules and weights can change between seasons; always check the current official rulebook before competing.

This table corrects a common error: pro women pull 103 kg including the sled on the sled pull, not 78 kg.

What is the most important performance factor?

The scientific HYROX literature is still young.

A 2025 study examined eleven experienced recreational athletes in a simulated open HYROX. The runs took a median of around 51 minutes, the stations around 33 minutes. Faster overall times were associated with, among other things, a higher VO₂max and more endurance training volume.

That is a small sample and not a definitive performance model.

But the finding fits the race structure: a large part of your race time comes from running.

That does not mean sleds and wall balls are unimportant. A weak station can cost a lot of time and, above all, ruin the following run.

But if you can run eight kilometres in total considerably faster, that affects the entire race.

HYROX is concurrent training — but interference gets overstated

Training strength and endurance at the same time is called concurrent training.

The old story often runs:

Endurance activates AMPK, AMPK inhibits mTOR, so running prevents muscle and strength gains.

As a mechanism that is interesting. As a training rule it is too coarse.

An updated meta-analysis covering 43 studies found no relevant disadvantage for maximal strength or whole-muscle hypertrophy on average when endurance and strength were combined.

Explosive strength was more sensitive. That disadvantage was particularly visible when strength and endurance were completed directly in the same session.

For HYROX it does not follow that you should separate every stimulus as much as possible.

Because the race itself demands exactly the ability to keep running after loading.

So you need two kinds of training:

• separated quality work, so that running and strength performance develop,
• targeted combined sessions, so that you learn the race transitions.

How much separation makes sense?

When a session has a clear quality goal, you should fatigue it as little as possible with the other training form beforehand.

Examples:

• heavy squats → not preceded by hard running intervals
• important 1 km intervals → not directly after maximal leg volume

If you train both on the same day, several hours in between can be sensible.

But there is no magic rule that exactly six or 24 hours are required.

And on a HYROX-specific day, the pre-fatigue is the point.

A brick like

1 km run → sled push → 1 km run

is meant to train exactly how you find your running pace again after a station.

Strength training stays important

A common mistake is replacing all heavy compound lifts with light circuits during race preparation.

That trains a lot of fatigue — but not necessarily the strength reserve that makes heavy stations easier.

Strength training with heavier loads can also improve running economy in endurance athletes. Newer meta-analyses show small but relevant benefits, particularly from heavy strength methods and combined strength approaches.

For HYROX that means:

You do not need a maximal powerlifting total.

But a solid strength base makes:

• the sled push/pull relatively easier,
• the farmers carry more stable,
• the lunges more controllable,
• the wall balls less strength-limited.

How strong do you have to be?

There are no scientifically validated HYROX strength benchmarks like “1.5× body weight squat = race ready”.

Numbers like that can be fun as a community heuristic, but they are not a hard performance threshold.

For preparation, task-specific questions are more useful:

• Can you move the race sled under control on a comparable surface?
• Can you complete the farmers carries at race weight without your grip collapsing?
• Can you break up 100 m of sandbag lunges with stable technique?
• Which wall ball set sizes can you reproduce at a high heart rate?
• How much does your 1 km pace drop after a station?

Those are performance markers closer to the race than a single squat ratio.

Training by starting point

You come from running

Your bottleneck is probably less your aerobic base than your strength reserve and station economy.

Sensible:

• keep 2 running quality sessions per week
• build up 2–3 strength/station sessions
• learn the heavy compound movements
• practise sleds, carries, lunges and wall balls technically

On strength exercises, progressive overload helps, but you do not have to add 5 kg blindly every week. Clean reps and controlled load increases matter more.

You come from strength training

Your bottleneck is often the repeated running under pre-fatigue.

Sensible:

• build running volume over weeks rather than starting three hard sessions immediately
• start with one easy and one quality run, and a specific one later
• concentrate strength training into 2 high-quality days
• keep the heavy work, reduce unnecessary hypertrophy volume

Zone 2 work can raise your volume without making every run hard.

You are a beginner at both

Then you need a base first, not maximum specificity.

A full-body plan with two to three strength days plus two easy running/cardio sessions is often more sensible than immediately packing every HYROX station into a circuit.

Only once you tolerate running and the basic movements separately is more combination worth it.

A 12-week template

The following structure is not a scientifically validated HYROX master plan. It is a practical template that brings together training principles from endurance, strength and concurrent training.

Phase 1: base — weeks 1 to 4

Goal: an aerobic base, a strength base and technical station competence.

Day	Training
Mon	Full-body strength A
Tue	Easy run 35–50 min
Wed	Off
Thu	Full-body strength B + short station technique
Fri	Off or 20–30 min very easy
Sat	Run: moderate/long, 45–65 min
Sun	Off

Strength focus:

• a squat or split-squat variation
• hinge
• horizontal/vertical pressing
• pulling
• carries

No weekly full simulations yet.

Phase 2: development — weeks 5 to 8

Goal: raise running performance and connect stations under controlled pre-fatigue.

Day	Training
Mon	Lower-body strength + carry/sled
Tue	Running intervals, e.g. 5–6 × 1 km
Wed	Off or very easy
Thu	Upper-body strength + wall balls/SkiErg
Fri	HYROX brick: 3–5 run/station blocks
Sat	Easy steady run 45–60 min
Sun	Off

Important: not every station has to be loaded maximally every week.

Brick sessions are meant to train transitions, not to simulate half a race every week.

Phase 3: specific — weeks 9 to 11

Goal: race pace, compromised running and race economy.

Day	Training
Mon	Strength maintenance, low volume
Tue	1 km intervals near planned race pace
Wed	Off
Thu	HYROX-specific combination, 4–6 blocks
Fri	Off or very easy
Sat	Longer specific session or partial simulation
Sun	Off

An almost complete simulation can make sense here — but not necessarily every week.

For many athletes, one or two larger simulations within the specific block are enough, with sufficient distance to race day.

Week 12: taper

The goal is no longer to build fitness but to make existing performance available fresh.

In practice:

• reduce total volume considerably
• keep short race-pace stimuli
• partly maintain strength intensity, lower the volume
• no more fatiguing full simulations
• shape the last days individually, based on experience

A blanket “Wednesday and Thursday completely off, Friday activation” is no universal rule. Your race day, training age and how you respond to rest all play a part.

Three types of running with different jobs in the plan

Easy running

Builds volume and is comparatively easy to recover from.

Threshold / controlled hard

Improves the ability to work near a high sustainable intensity for longer.

1 km and compromised intervals

Train the actual race specificity: finding your pace again despite a station just before it.

Running only hard intervals is therefore just as incomplete as running only zone 2.

Typical mistakes

Too many “HYROX workouts”

If every session consists of running + sled + burpees + wall balls, high-quality individual work eventually disappears.

Specificity matters. Permanent pre-fatigue is not the same thing as good specificity.

Cutting heavy strength training entirely

A strength reserve stays valuable — even when you need fewer sets during the race phase.

Underestimating running

In the HYROX study available so far, running made up the larger share of total time, and a higher VO₂max was associated with faster times.

An athlete who can do every station decently but runs eight slow kilometres is leaving a lot of time on the table.

A full simulation every week

A simulation is a test and a specific stimulus. But it is expensive in recovery terms and does not automatically deliver more progress than targeted training of individual components.

Tracking progress sensibly

HYROX has several performance dimensions. So more than the finish time of a simulation is worth tracking.

Track, for instance:

• 1 km pace when fresh
• 1 km pace after stations
• sled time at race weight
• wall ball set sizes and rest periods
• farmers carry breaks
• strength numbers in 2–4 main lifts
• subjective effort

If your running performance rises and your strength stays stable, concurrent training is currently working for you.

If both decline over weeks, the more sensible response is not automatically “more toughness” but a review of your total volume.

Conclusion

A good HYROX plan does not maximise running, strength, stations and simulations all at once.

It distributes priorities.

The key points:

• Running is a central performance factor.
• Strength training stays worthwhile and can even support running economy.
• Concurrent training does not automatically prevent maximal strength or muscle growth.
• Separated quality sessions and targeted combined sessions serve different jobs.
• A 12-week structure is a practical framework, not a scientific minimum.
• Full simulations are tools, not the entire training plan.

You do not become HYROX-specific by making every session chaotically hard.

You become specific by developing running, strength and stations first — and then bringing them together deliberately under race conditions.

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Sources

• HYROX (2025/26). Official HYROX Singles Rulebook, Season 2025/26 and official race format.
• Brandt T et al. (2025). Acute Physiological Responses and Performance Determinants in HYROX – a New Running-Focused High Intensity Functional Fitness Trend. Frontiers in Physiology, 16:1519240.
• Schumann M et al. (2022). Compatibility of Concurrent Aerobic and Strength Training for Skeletal Muscle Size and Function: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Medicine, 52(3):601-612.
• Lundberg TR et al. (2022). The Effects of Concurrent Aerobic and Strength Training on Muscle Fiber Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Medicine, 52(10):2391-2403.
• Llanos-Lagos C et al. (2024). Effect of Strength Training Programs in Middle- and Long-Distance Runners’ Economy at Different Running Speeds: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Sports Medicine, 54(4):895-932.
• Blagrove RC et al. (2018). Effects of Strength Training on the Physiological Determinants of Middle- and Long-Distance Running Performance: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine.